Monthly Archives: December 2012

Following my moment “for-GIVE-ness” on Christmas Day, both my blogs feel a bit frisky – needing to run in tandem. “What is True?” was written a couple of days ago, in response to John who writes thoughtfully about love.

I shall get to work with autopoeisis, Yggdrasil and the Tree in the early New Year for “Aquariel”. Speaking of interrelated psychic, emotional, spiritual and physical immune-systems however, the following ideas are in the picture – it begins at home.

It is customary to moan about humanity. This in my view doesn’t get us ANYWHERE. It’s like bullocks putting their heads together for a good moo. We have to reach deep into ourselves for what is Real, and to act. This is rare. The majority of humans don’t have the training, the perspective or the insight – and nor does mind’s habit-base, especially when tired. So of course our heads fumble, shuffle and snort along the fence.

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I reached it on Xmas day. I touched the human place – or rather, it touched me. Subconscious opened, and delivered. Now I watch her move up into my more mundane strata and fall into various shapes and sizes; how will she make me act, or draw back from reaction; what dominoes will she push? – Watch this space.

As to being truthful in love: this is rarely available in the way I would like it. Consider the pressure of My Truth against His Truth or Your Truth. Which is more true than any of the others? It is better on the whole to keep quiet, and to let truth act, without blethering about it. A gesture speaks more than words; a kindness, a change of air. We are humankind. Countless times I broke down, in my effort to tell the truth as I see it, and still I do, and still I try … but more feebly.

What “lets the truth act”? It is the transcendent “cosmic” wisdom. Sometimes it takes hours, sometimes months, sometimes many years. When the Truth appears in a relationship, it is beyond my belief, beyond my careful verbal construction. It is vital, from the heart, from the core, from the bone-marrow; it moves me to the right thing – it takes two to Tango. If I want Truth, I must discover my deep belief in lies, and expose it on my mountain top. If I want Truth I must reach deeper than my programmed platform . I must reach towards the Vision. The Vision is rarely available to the huff and puff of speech.

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If I want truth, “i” must stand aside, and not in its way. Learn to respect the truth in the one whom I was trying to convert to my view. It may surprise me. I am not the only follower of truth.

If I want truth, I find it in his eyes, his mouth and the way it beats in his chest. I enjoy his humanity: I feel what it is like to be him, “to be YOU”. There is a spontaneous pleasure and freedom, to stand in his shoes and wonder what it is like to have his legs, his thoughts and worries – the mystery of being him and his problems, as well as being myself. I chuckle with his comedy. This isn’t co-dependency, it is the opposite. It is the living IMAGINATION through which our full human conscience thrives. Being fully human is to live in paradox. I come from in between, and I include both sides – it opens the window to every side. When Jesus said “love one another”, he meant this. Jesus was and is this.

When I am aware how “his this” is, a perspective on Earth opens which is different to the prevailing belief. It is as if I toiled along between hedges and houses, they all had my usual picture on them; then I voluntarily change my level, and I see the whole landscape fore and aft and all around. I see right through the walls of my belief or the collective belief system. I am raised up into my Dimension which is truth. This is why the Dalai Lama and all the Maestri smile genuinely, whatever happens down among the narrow houses and hedges. The Dalai Lama’s people suffered diaspora, they were invaded, raped and displaced; his unconditional, and hard-won wellbeing, is the head and heart held high; walk tall. Talk peace with the conquerors. This is bravery, power.

It is transpersonal and remains firmly rooted in everyday life. Once glimpsed, it is never forgotten. A daily FOCUS is necessary, to practice the instrument. This may be meditation or prayer or a garden or any work in a tradition of integrity. My daily meditation hears what is said, and “writes”. A Master once said to a disciple, “We come not to the charm of your personality but to your clarity of mind – your third eye.”

Paul Foster Case said “Change the pattern, and you change the result. Make it accurate, profound, courageous, positive. Then you tame the lion, and he becomes your servant.”

When I see truth, I don’t need to persuade my partner or anyone else of it. He or she is truth right now, and opens to that realisation in their own time. This is what the sages mean when they perceive and say, “You are already realised.” They see life and humankind as a branch of flowering buds, some destined earlier, some later. The tree is bound to flower and bear fruit. This includes compassion with the hurts, the limitations and sorrows of the tight bud, the dark path. All of these are integral to the way it ultimately blossoms from the wood; and the sages weep with us.

Meanwhile in the daily biff and baff, I try to be honest. But tact is essential. I get to know my cher ami slowly. We’ve been going together for nearly seven years. We love each other, and about twice a year we get utterly furious with each other, and split up for two to five weeks. Then we get back together, refreshed from the whirliwash: it is a rhythmic cycle by now. So I mustn’t worry.

In relationship I am inarticulate. There is no sense in hitting an old soldier’s wounds with a sledgehammer. I was sledge-hammered by a Hungarian when I was young, so I know. It is best not to even touch the wounds until I am sure. And who is?

That one who sledge hammered me, is the one I touched base with in the magic of Christmas day. Had he been more skilful, just one gentle tap would have done the trick. Deep down, there is a little dawning. I do not have to do it. It is doing itself. We are all connected through gravity. Shifts of consciousness show the way. Shifts of consciousness are tiny ones – an acute angle, a point – but on the galactic protractor, they are vast arcs between the stars. This is where it starts. HERE. Nowhere else. HERE is every where, and now here: the tiny woodland flower.

The sledgehammer is what we are to each other, when we believe we are right.

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The still, small voice connects.

If you look HERE you’ll find.

If you play with your sword you won’t; but I’m HERE our bridge.

You may not hear what touches you

but HERE, my songs in your tree are lovebirds.

Poems of Eclipse 1999

I wanted to find out more about “Aquariel”, the title for this blog – “an angel of the waters and of the air through the woods of life” – with Gaia and the quantum leap.YesterdayI googled it online, and dropped at once onto a website (see below), describing Archangel Aquariel.

“The color blue-green of peacock is part of the new color system which has been downloading into our consciousness over the past few years. Since 1998 I have been seeing colors so different that there really is no description in our language to describe these colors.

“ This blue-green color of the sea is protected by the Archangel Aquariel, who sits behind Archangel Gabriel as a CEO for Clarity.

”Archangel Aquariel also protects the ‘new’ 8th Chakra of the thymus. This chakra plays an important role in connecting the heart to the throat chakra. It is important that we consciously think about how we can boost the immune system. The thymus chakra also connects through the medulla at the base of the skull to assist in connecting to the Higher realms.

”The energy of Archangel Aquariel brings us balance between earth and sea. He talks with the Dolphins, then shares with us this knowledge of spiritual evolution. The Dolphins connect with Peacock and gift to us the ability to know ourselves in truth, so that we have the self-confidence to walk our path as we choose.

”Peacock as an animal totem allows access to the Karmic connections between the soul and physical connection. It carries the energy of the Phoenix which allows us to rise from past differences and challenges. The peacock with its loud raucous call doesn’t let us forget who we are and from where we came. It’s call has the sound of laughter letting us know that we need not take life too seriously – that it is after all only a game we came to play.

”Whatever the lessons, challenges and games under the totem of this color blue-green of the peacock we are reminded that we are constantly guided and protected by Archangel Aquariel.”

Gaele Arnott

This makes sense – particularly as concerns connecting the thymus to the way we speak and express what we are: the alignment with our planetary body’s health. Thymus is just above the heart chakra. It is awake in children, pregnant women and alchemists.

Peacocks in the rose garden – detail from “Black Swans”

He stands behind Gabriel, the beautiful face of God. He is greenish blue, the colour of Scorpio in Tarot. His creatures are the peacock and the dolphins’ school. His rulership, the new “octave” chakra, links heart and throat through the thymus. I write of speech and silence in this post – “What is True?” Through this “octave” centre, we voluntarily enhance our immune system. This has a knock-on effect through relationships, ecology and ideas.

Didn’t Jesus say something about what comes out of us, never mind what goes in? Where is that thought? It has something to do with: never mind what the priest prattles. How YOU say what you have to say, is important. It is in Tibetan Tonglen also: the compassion to breathe in my friend’s dark, and breathe it out as light – a steady transformation.

Here, “Aquariel” aims to travel – planetary and personal autopoeisis, as an individuation. Clearly, the way we express ourselves is crucial for health, strength and boundaries. If we permit the negative sneak, our shield – our magendovid – is weakened.

Being where we are, to be positive about things requires consistent creative intelligence and maintenance. Every single small individual willing to practice this, is gold dust. Who else will? Not the governments or local authorities – how can they? They don’t know, and they do their british best. Yes Dave, give it your best shot! Good on yer …

Flooded Britain – the prime minister in the Daily Mail

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Aquariel – an angel of the waters and of the air through the woods of life.

To continue a sort of big Xmas card: transcripts from the late Robert Adams (21 January 1928 – to 5 March 1997) whom I visited in Arizona, in 1996. He is much loved.

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“It’s so simple. Lift your head up to heaven, and you’ll be in heaven. Hang your head down to hell, and you’ll be in hell. The world has absolutely nothing to do with it, nor do people. You have the freedom to be known as Brahman. And you have the freedom to be known as the person who has problems. The choice is yours. The choice is always yours.

“How do you feel about yourself right now? Do you really like yourself, appreciate yourself? It makes no difference what position you’re in, or what you are doing in life. You can’t say you like yourself, if you have a good job and make a lot of money and are the healthiest person on earth. These things have absolutely nothing to do with it, for you are not the body! You are not who you think you are!

“Let go all the thoughts about yourself, good or bad. Right now, let go of everything – everything that has ever bothered or hurt you – drop it. Lift yourself up to the highest! where there is no pain, no lack, no limitation. This is the land of the Buddha, the end of samsara. In the land of the Buddha, there is only peace and quietness and joy. You have crossed the ocean of samsara, and are truly free right now. Your burdens have been expunged, you no longer have to carry your Karma around with you – Samsara, Karma, is all finished for you.

“Feel this. Feel your freedom; the freedom from being confined – feel free from this. You are consciousness, pure awareness, and you encompass the whole Universe. How beautiful it is! All fear has left you. You are seeing the whole world as a dream. It can never hurt you again. It has no power.

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“The only reason you’ve been hurt previously, is due to the fact you have thought of this world as being real, and you have reacted to it. But now you’re beginning to see that this world is MAYA. It is a dream, and you are the dreamer. When you are asleep, you are total peace.

“You have a dream about a war; you’re in the war, you get wounded, your leg has to be amputated, you go through all kinds of experiences; and then you wake up, and you feel refreshed, you had a long beautiful sleep, but you were dreaming about the war, about the experiences. This is how it is right now for you. The whole world, the whole Universe that you behold, is YOUR dream, and you are taking it for real! This is where suffering ensues. You take this world for real, and you react to it, but you are reacting to a dream; and as long as you keep reacting to this world, you will never awaken.

“Catch yourself thinking. Ask yourself, Who thinks? Be truthful to yourself. Say ‘I think.’ But then realise that you’re not the I ! So ‘I thinks’, and you have absolutely nothing to do with it. Then where does this ‘I’ come from? ‘If I have absolutely nothing to do with it,’ you say to yourself, ‘why is the I there? Why does it present itself to me?’

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“By that very question, the ‘I’ will be dissolved. It will find absolute freedom. You have to learn to keep enquiring within yourself. Nobody outside of you can help you – all the answers are within you. YOU are the answer! Feel how wonderful this is! All the answers that you are looking for, are within your Self.

“As you are sitting here this way, all of this stuff that has been holding you back from your highest good, is melting away – feel this happening ! All those things that held on to you so long, in the form of disease, lack, limitation or unhappiness of any kind, or ignorance, feel it all dissolving right now. Feel it happening.

You are the divine One. You are the One which has always been
and that which will always be. You are awareness, total joy and peace.

“You do not have to try to make it happen; it’s already happening. There is nothing you have to do. Just:

Be still and know that I am God. Be still and know that I am God.

“Say this to your Self, not your ego, not the personal I, but to I AM, which is really you, which is God.”

Be still and know that I AM God. Be still and know that I AM God.

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“It is now time to play ‘Stump the Guru.’

“No stumpers today? Well I’ll have to ask you if you have any questions?”

Student – “Yes, I have something … a disciple went to the Master and asked him, ‘do you and I live in the same world?’ and the Master said, ‘yes we do, but there is a difference, and that is, you think you live in the world, and I know the world lives in me.’ That seems to be the whole deal in a nutshell.”

Robert – “Yes, in a nut shell. The whole world is in a nut shell. Anyone else like to say something? Ask a question? Any stumpers over there?”

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Student – “Robert, please describe what is compassion, where does it come from, does it in reality exist?”

Robert – “A being who has transcended the small self, becomes the epitomy of compassion automatically. Compassion really means when you leave everything alone and you love it. You have a joy in your heart for everything you see, the good, the bad and the ugly. It means you’re not judgemental, you are free, and you let everything else be free. True compassion is as if in a dream you come over and help a person because you realise he doesn’t know he’s dreaming. You have a great compassion for everything that is happening – for all humanity – for the suffering that is going on. Even though you understand it’s a dream, you do not become arrogant and cynical and say, Oh this is this way and that is like that and will happen this way and I’ll fix this and take care of that and do that.

“You keep silent. In this silence is compassion, great love, for everything that exists. The ground upon which you stand is holy ground. The whole universe is God. Everything is God, and compassion for all things: animals, insects and every kind of vegetation.

“This is a virtue of consciousness. As you work on yourself and develop yourself, compassion comes by itself. You have compassion for those who abuse you, for those who cause problems in the world, for you know they are asleep. Living the mortal dream, they cannot help what they do. Compassion will come of its own accord.”

Student: – “What is infinity? Is a jnani and infinity the same, or equal?”

Robert: – “Everything is infinity. Everything is infinite. The Jnani is infinite, infinite like the sky. Emptiness is infinite, total, boundless space. The substratum beyond space is infinite. The glue that holds the planets together in their orbit is infinity. Everything beyond the body, beyond the mind, beyond thoughts, is infinity. Infinity is just another word for Consciousness. When you speak of a jnani, there’s no such thing as more or less. A jnani encompasses everything. So we cannot say that infinity is different. Infinity is the jnani, the same as pure awareness. It is all infinity, there is no separation. It’s all the same. It is all one. It’s only when the mind starts to think, that it is broken up into segments and duality. Go beyond the words.

“… Think of going out into the sun. The closer you get to the sun, the more the heat. The closer you are to a jnani, the more the reality, the truth in yourself.

“The jnani is like a force of power, electrical charge, always emanating peace. If you feel this, then accept it. When a jnani has transcended the whole world, all the power of the Universe is in the jnani. It is all One and all pervading.

“But a manifestation of consciousness became the jnani, just as the sun shines, and each ray from the sun is different. So it is with the jnani. Awaken to this truth – you are that. There is no difference between you and me – you see a difference – I don’t!

“Infinity does not act. If you would imagine a power that takes up all space and time, there’s no space anywhere, for the power takes up all space. You can’t say there’s space and something else, for there’s no place for anything else. Again, you can’t say that the jnani is infinity. There’s only infinity. It doesn’t end!”

Merry Xmas !

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Aquariel – an angel of the waters and of the air through the woods of life.

At my cher ami’s house, I enjoy reading the paper, and in the Daily Mail was an article by Ken the Corrie star, who happens to be a Druid – about 12.12.12 last week, and how everything is going to start getting a little better from now on. That in itself is a polar flip-flop! Ramesh and his students used to discuss the Flip-Flop of the Understanding – the backfiring and re-start: the inversion.

cosmic consciousness

All alchemical experience suffers some psychological inversion – the crossing over of left and right brain to see and interpret; the ventricles of the heart; the rocking of the boat. Hold too tight to one side, at your peril. The psyche must be sweet and supple to duck the swinging boom. Illumination – then dark night of the soul. Then Light again. Day and night …

A polar bear
jumps in the air and
lands the other way round.

Ursa Major – “I’m sitting on top of the Word” – clapton/cream

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I went in my cher ami’s garden yesterday. It is all bubbled over with wet brown leaves and little things growing. The Buddha whose photo among the flowers and ivy has glorified my Sacred India Tarot posts, sits forlorn and grey next to the white dead litter of the nasturtiums – all fallen by frost, from the bamboo which is left quite bare. We salvaged the garden a couple years ago, from jungle and a decade of rubbish tip. We cleared all that away, by hand and reached the ground. It is a green oasis in the woods near Henly’s Corner, and a redbreast robin dances.

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My magnetic treasure for Today is a compass. It continues to educate me and show me my direction. No direction is sure without the necessary pain of life to prove it and keep it shining in every sinew, bone and feeling. That little miracle shining in its fluid, points always to the north and soothes my feathers to be a seal. Value what “Mr V” left me, and what I work with, to this day. The current which passes between souls is far more significant than the charade of their transgressions.

The Compass in its circular frame is a little steering wheel, left and right, subconscious and self conscious, with the centre remaining steady: the Tree. Navigation by the stars.

So descend with it through my House, the memory of the stars; the vast Night within the passing day-cloth: the starling’s breast.

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Second birth – breaking through the caul of life into the Laws of Creation: an old Kabbalist engraving

A Kabbalist meditation last Monday – I go out into the night. There is a village nearby. Some houses are built on rock and others on sand. There is a body of water not far off, for the place is a shallow valley, with stands of trees. It is night, so I don’t see much, except the lamp light, and the mystery of the unlit fields as I cross them to the higher place. The higher place is a scarp overlooking the scene, and its old pathways. Look up: the sky of stars again. Look toward my distant house: one light in it, a star. I know that star, even among other stars scattered around it. I know my lode star, my Compass in the night. Merry Yuletide!

Arunachala Self enquiry

I wake this morning with deep peace, the stretch of the sea. It is said that we glide along the tipping point of an alignment of immense galactic vortices as a wheel of time completes, and a new-born spiral curve arises like a swan. I had guests last night. They said we are receiving more magnetic influences from galactic centre (dark, because unknown) than from our native Sun, at the moment. This is due to the alignment resonance, which just begins to educate us. In Kabbalah it suggests we are getting more from Daat, than from Tifareth on the Tree. It is powerful stuff.

That is why humanity finds itself so hard to deal with. In this space of time, we learn to align, but during this process there is alienation, dis-ease, social and family breakdown, and the obsession with astral demons and with petty regulations. The immune shield of earth and human is confused and compromised. There is ecological fracture and climate change. There are gun psychoses, and civil wars.

The vast turgid current IS the Light – even a black hole is nothing but the light, the birth of a star from an old collapse – but its impact on our imagination is at first turbulent and dark. The shadows are our projection in front of Daat. It is said that the Maggidim, the Companions of the Light, are closer nowadays to our physical plane than they have ever been – it is all in the way they nudge and touch us inwardly. The Companions of the Light never tell us what to do; they reveal principles, the way things work, so we decide for ourselves. As we calm down about it, life flows on, as the tension drops away. Most things we fear are manufactured by muscular tension.

The disturbances of humanity and climate during these decades are inevitable; they are pains of growth at tipping point. It takes dedication to keep remembering Tifareth – the native Heart consciousness right here – as well as Daat, the unknown cognition, the Union of all things.

The other night, I saw in a brief vision as I crested a hill, a landscape with a boil of smoky black clouds, with the light churning through them, as the morning broke. It grew lighter, rising up, an immense dynamism. In everything, through Him, with Him, in Him is the light; and “He” is Gaia, She, and all our children. I was walking in Taunton (my teenage years) towards school, Bishop Fox’s, with my cher ami’s white dog Dubi; like The Fool, Key Zero – the Alchemist of the Tarot.

This post is written in a hurry, as there are things to do today, besides sit and listen. I shall probably add to it.

dervish

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Wishing you merry Christmas, a warm Yule log, and many beautiful dawns in 2013 and in all the years to come. With Love … and Gayatri Mantra. A fellow Capricorn just came to the door; and he is singing it!

“Let us meditate on the divine light that represents God, and may our thoughts be inspired by that divine light.”

Paul sat there singing it, while I swirled my skirts and danced. He is wearing this …

with this on the other side:

… and in my kitchen there is this:

sphere compass crystal lamp

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and this is my Xmas card of little drops of Time like rain …

… from Paul.

For elevenses, we went in my room, lit a candle, opened the Tree of Life, celebrated our beloved dead ones, who are very much alive; chuckled, and sat still. The world obligingly ended. The room filled with a feeling presence so white and quiet, the mind couldn’t move. She stood still and received …

O happy Day.

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Aquariel – an angel of the waters and of the air through the woods of life.

This post begins with two oracles or “moments” in early December, for the Solstice. The three cards are “present”/centre, “past”/left and “future”/right.

It is also “sewn together” with my recent posts Sacred India Tarot Buddha 8,9.10 of Pentacles, Today is a Special Day and Bardo – a Buddha Atom Awakes on my primary blog. Here are the writings and reflections from my journal, behind them.

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Tarot oracle 3 December 2012

12.21.6 is the pure hexagonal movement of the Seal of Solomon, my universal heart key. The 6 is half of 12, i.e. the date. Add the three numbers, they are 12

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Seal of Solomon Cubed

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Secret Dakini Oracle, 7 December 2012

The Heart Drop and the Lineage Tree fulfil the beauty. The Heart Drop is a landscape of silver rippled sand, a buddhist stupa and a ruby. It is in the tantra vajrayana tradition. The mind stops and enters yabyum. The Rainbow Buddha is in the Tree of Life. And Time’s wheel strikes the moment.

Oracle of solstice. Ora, oasis of solstice. This is profoundly real, striking the ora, hour, the moment through the clock’s face in the Real Aquarius.

Alignment flows the ease of being. The force is imperceptibly vast, like gravity. It seems likely that forces arraigned against it, suffer an increased violence and implosion. The core through evolutionary crossroads, is uncompromising. The root of the uncompromised, is … to Align. Turn. Submission. The Merciful. There are stars at night in the sands. The resistance is the old tribal vendettas and their murderous sentiment, brother against brother, civil war, humanquake.

What about the true Islam, invisible behind the televised tension? I … am.

View the present crisis historically, as a fence, a hurdle of an old world with the new. Solar atoms pass through it, like the current through the Buddha’s enlightenment.

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13 December – in Nether Stowey, Somerset

My mother drew my attention to 12.12.12 yesterday, being absolutely unique and unrepeatable, as there is no 13th month. So I did a piece on my blog about this – with some difficulty as the signal/internet dongle here comes and goes. Discovered it is strong in the morning, and gradually deteriorates.

With my cher ami, I have decided to stop trying to get things right, and certainly not to worry when I don’t. That just gives power to him and makes a loop, which he doesn’t want either. Nobody can be exactly right with another person. It’s just a fantasy, and a deconstructive one. This is a good realization. I always tried too hard and got entangled. Human beings are not “right”. We are just the way we are.

It is very cold in Nether Stowey, and I am having a good time with my parents, both nearly 90. Ah well now, a morning moment … the quiet. Lord thou art God – the Rose: the infinite moment inside the beautiful 12.12.12: my Tarot oracle 12.21.6 – Hanging Man inverts the World-way, and becomes the mutual understanding of the Lovers.

I am looking through the window, a skylight in a roof. I will not give power any more to other peoples’ opinions and closed houses. I accept them as they are, alongside the way I am.

I played some Bach on the piano, and I begin to remember Vera Moore a little. What she gave to notes and music lessons, was love, of a specially irresistible kind. I felt her loving presence, transcending every mess of humanity, in the muse; her voice, her laughter, her authority, her magnetic sparkle.

This moment is her receptacle. A sort of painting of her is inside me. I don’t know if it will happen. The moment of settlement is complete in itself, and all-extending.

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Quantock Oak

14/15 December – The Ravening Curiosity

The devas are joyful, come what may.

When I was in the Quantocks above Nether Stowey, I moved at a fast lope down Bincombe because it was very cold. Through the soft brown autumnal drift of crisp leaves, my hips, knees and ankles danced loosely. All the small oaken witches danced. I became suddenly the silence. The silence of the wood sings in the blood and the bones. It is utterly quiet in the valley, as the descending waters begin to flow in their leafy bed. Further down, they arise through the ground, they sing and sound. Water is a miracle, the movement of the Stone, water of life.

I’m reading a book Into the Land of the Snows. It is by Ellis Nelson. It describes in one mountain scene, the exposure of a dead human to vultures – a Sky burial. The organs are taken out, the bones crushed and mixed with meal to make the feast clean, complete and appetizing. Life is renewed in death – another human gift. After reading this, I felt the iron piercing cold of the Himalaya, and the strange bastrikas which generate heat and keep the monks warm up there; and there came over me that purity – far from the ravening curiosity of the mind. In the stillness I see the shallow, ravening curiosity of the mind, for what it is; the trouble we all share and subscribe to. I am stepped just aside a little. I become the enigma of rocks, of valleys. Round yellow disks of the Sun – chakras – are placed on sensitive parts of the earth – my body.

Ramana’s presence bestowed peace – the felling of the curiosity. Buddha’s presence bestowed that same vital, ringing peace. Both carried their great quest through death’s door. It is night. I am back in London now. I am in bed and I hear the sounds of feet in the street and a distant fox yelping, as pulses without time. Solstice draws near – a solstice which tenders an infinite silent Life, the polar axis, a simplicity of being. There is an alteration in our composition.

The opportunity – in the atomic core of sinew, blood and bone – steps aside from the ravening curiosity which suddenly, subtly, is viewed objectively. The everyday mind is a ravening curiosity – my human curse and cross. As soon as it is seen, it is no longer so. Or it remains, out of habit, but compassion permeates it. Let it be. It seems to slough, like an old snake skin.

Dancer

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The Buddha in Sacred India Tarot Disks 8, 9, 10: the teaching and the maha Samadhi and the Bardo – see my other blog. It is all linked, like the trees in the wood.

Buddha and Ramana, and all great sages, gathered crowds of devotees to their death. Maybe Jesus had witnesses other than the gospel scribes, who watched him pass in deep peace, and came away with that; but no one read or canonised them. This is quite a thought; that the death of Jesus was not an agony.

The deaths of Ramana, Buddha, Jesus, demonstrated an exquisite eliding of the planes of life and liberation. Their deaths were seamless with life. We attend a death as we attend a birth; the sliding water in the woods, the kites that soar in the sky, the atomic interchange of consciousness.

Some of my stories of the Watershed contain kernels of the unending Life. In one of them, the living white sunflowers ate the dead ones. (The story is at the end of that post.) A blue radiance came in through the window, and played around the noumenon. Seeing something like that just once or twice, changed my body’s depth-expectation for ever.

Lovers

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Insight last week: in the capsule and story of me, I don’t perceive the truth of a person or of life. Same-ways, in the collective human capsule, how can our magnification of ourselves and guilt perceive truth? The truth is simpler than the pain we believe and measure.

Wisdom residing within our soul’s atoms unconsciously, and in just a few places awake, perceives the cosmos. The cosmos is what we are, as we wake from the dream. It is bound to be rather a surprise.

Solomon’s Seal and Flower of Life

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15 December

My mother’s piano is tres sympathique. It was easy to imagine Vera Moore sitting with me, and what she would say about this note or that note, wrapping my fingers round it like a baby in a shawl. I remembered her way with poetic images, and her LOVE. That is the magic – her love. It makes me want to go on playing, and keeps me focused. I remembered her instruction to play what I am learning, like a chorale, without any inhibitions – sing it inside, with the touch. I shall put that postscript onto the MusicLessons with VM.

The young Vera

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This is the time of the slide through solstice tipping point, which means different circlings to different soul types. I hear its simple silence through my antakharana valley. I am sleeping badly. I think this is due to an intensity in Yetzirah generally. The stillness stretches time – re-mind it under the “ravening curiosity”. It is always slipping through the valley. It never ends.

Today I have to do a Buddha SITA post. I shall parallel it – link it with last night’s piece, here.

I got a little download this morning, but didn’t manage to write it all down. The voice said “You know I would wish you to. When you have piano lesson, take your jacket off literally, and listen.”

There was something important before and after this, which slipped away.

The flavour of the woods, the winter ground, the wet leaves and thawing frost is the Buddha nature flowing through, and in my black “snowdrop” diary of 1988, is the bit about the passing lorry-cosmos – my actual “enlight-in” … drop some of that into the new SITA post.

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My parents, the old people, still young at heart … this is sad. Their door closes. They are conditioned to see ONLY the mess which humans have made of things, and the inevitable demise of the race. I feel this is but a point of view, as I am consistently made aware of other wavelengths, other views. The endgame AND … the endgame contains something quite other which prevails, through that dream. “All is happening as it should.”

To be a Kabbalist is rare. My father is rather closed and opinionated in his way – at nearly 90. Pessimism. My mother has pessimism, some of it rubbed off from him; but she has a child inside who still wakes. His connections are intellectual. He worked on himself magnificently, all his life: Jiddu Krishnamurti was his teacher. Hers are organic, and spark me off. Anyway, I am so glad I spent this time with them. So are they. And we remember the older generation behind them, as we pour the whisky and wine.

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Swan to be born, and Camel

We watched a film called “Weeping Camel” about the Gobi Desert nomads, and their tenderness with child and beast. They used the wind’s note through a stringed instrument to awaken a shaggy young camel’s maternal instinct to her abandoned calf who cried. They caressed the mother, while drawing the bow across the strings, like a mantra, to the exact vibration of the wind. It was a lullaby. In those wild parts of Mongolia, they use their vocal chords in this way too. She allowed at last, her homeless calf to suckle, and the bond was born. The camera team gave a TV and a disfiguring satellite dish to the family’s small son, who had seen one in the town, and begged for it. Progress is paradox.

Cosmos – the God-cosm – is rough and hard when we struggle against it, and gentle when we move with it.

During those long, slow breaths with the camels that evening, my childhood Himalayan hero died of a ripe old age in France. I found this out, two days later. I am growing up.

See again, the Sun’s silent veil of vibrant life; the pattern of the cloth upon the deep.

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Swing & School photo, 1955

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Aquariel – an angel of the waters and of the air through the woods of life.

The other day it occurred to me, to step round the Hermit’s Ba bird, and gaze up into his face, his dark eyes, his lamp with the Seal of Solomon. This is the light of stars, and also the inner light of man.

It is as any other face, a little wider than expected but … to face him thus, seems to cross the bridge between brains right and left – the walnut. The Hermit is consciousness, and I approaching from his left, am subconscious. As I step round to look up into his face, I align with his intuitive side. There is a taste of bread and honey.

I stepped round his Ba and his staff into the cave which he is: his own in-turned, heartward contemplation. I look at that.

It is like glimpsing the Furnace of the Universe. The galactic wheels, cauldrons, stars and fires throughout the Universe, turn. Within my spine I slowly turn, like the neck of a swan: axis mundi.

“Daily practice of the thought that the personal life is directly guided by a higher intelligence, daily remembrance of the truth that nobody can do anything of himself, daily endeavour to approach all conditions and circumstances from this point of view – these are the fundamentals of the training which makes us true possessors of the power of the Hermit’s path of wisdom” … and its contentment.

“From intellectual recognition of the true nature of the central Self, to perfect identification with the cosmic memory … the cosmic process is meditation – the meditation of Kaivalya, ALONE”

Paul Foster Case

The Life Power that All is One … is alone. I feel this flow through my veins, as well as the resistant personal stuff. Where would flow be, without the dark bits to move along? … wave and particle. In my picture of the Buddha’s enlightenment, that wave flows across it, with its bits of grit and song. We feel its direction through us like the Dust in His Dark Materials. We feel the soft seamless glide, guide and shift whenever we slow down and hear. Whereabouts do I select to identify? Or is it by blind habit? The dial is given me to tune and turn.

Nowadays circles with dots in the middle have gone out of fashion, and it is by digital finger-tap up or down – little columns – that we adjust the wavelength. Use whatever illustrates the principle best. The dial is satisfying, employing the ancient delicate skill of thumb and forefinger. Digi-technology begins to atrophy this. Finger is gone – it is all thumb, like a growing ape, with much wider guidelines, a kindergarten primer. Even the wheel is going slow – with more people sitting at home to travel and rove. We have buttons on our brows. We browse.

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The Perfect Law has Beauty for its foundation. Eliphas Levi: “black magic is organized madness.” True magic is in the Will – an intense, expectant receptivity.

The Hermit Squares the Circle. This means the divine circle, the sphere of cosmos, submits to its expression on the little ground – four compass directions + up, down, and becomes a map, a terrain. A Mandala sits in a room, and its opposite numbers breathe together through the open Cup at centre.

I know in my own mind, that primitive magic and modern science-theory are bedfellows. The passionate tension to prove or enforce a phenomenon, feels identical. For instance, in straight psychology, the effort of mind to square a circle literally, is no different from attempting to command the laws of nature. I used to fiddle around to prove things, and get overwrought; I no longer try. A heart seeking honesty arrives openly.

An unobstructed channel manifests the Heavenly Order.

Hamsa Great Swan

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Aquariel – an angel of the waters and of the air through the woods of life.

Rosicrucean Emblem 7 by janeadamsart – a Lily in a pot, growing in a garden: purity and root system

My plan for this blog is to begin participating in a discussion on AUTOPOEISIS – nature’s immune response: the planet’s systems as a whole, from which our humanity is in no way separate.

Earth’s immune-shield is in tidal retreat – a natural Yin response to our exploitation. The same symptoms appear in our bodies, our viral communications, and our obsession with health and safety issues. The AIDS miasm is a prime illustration; also the weakening of eco-systems in the human and vegetable kingdoms through excessive travel, commerce and spillage of DNA. It is a natural development, but in its early stages, out of balance, as we lack respect.

The visual image this delivers, is of roots being shaken out of their soil. Each organism has a ground on which it is designed to thrive, by climate and by local connectivity. A conscious farmer neither exhausts nor forces what a field can produce, by importing from overseas. Every few years it is set-aside fallow, to regain nutrients and vital force. All eco-systems – and our lifetimes – follow a cyclic rhythm – the fibonacci spiral.

Paradoxically, the local connectivity – grass roots – is identical with cosmic connectivity: the Law as it settles, like manna or rain. Travel is good for cross-fertilizing – seeds travel on the breeze from field to field. But excessive travel, worry and search for distraction, is no longer a pleasure or adventure, but merely unsettling.

Thousands of years ago, it was predicted that the early stages of the Age of Aquarius would see humans taking to the air, like insects beginning to swarm. The technology is visible, both physically and in cyber space. As in every other evolutionary stage, we have to LEARN TO FLY; but … we haven’t yet! So it is all in the mind.

Baby gosling jumbo jet, with acorns and distant oak 1987

The effort to fly ahead of ourselves – acceleration of industry and information beyond capacity – destabilizes our environment, and particularly our own relation with it. It compromises our health and immunity, as goslings of our Mother Gaia.

The tide through the ages, goes in and out: the breath. Jiddu Krishnamurti – who faced many conflicting issues – once said “the tide going in and out has no in conflict in the one movement with itself; the essence is peace.”

And so it is with our history … today as always, along the borderline.

Kabbalah – in the Toledo tradition – teaches that the human soul is still learning to handle physicality. We are not fully descended from the garden of Eden in Yetzirah (world of the psyche) into the earth plane. Most of the time we are locked inside the little castle of our mind, and do not notice where we put our feet or throw our rubbish. Our experiential reality is mostly virtual: not Real.

The Age of Capricorn – 2,000 years or so from today – may well see a humanity which is better grounded and well rounded. Pluto in Capricorn at present teaches fundamental lessons in our values and in the transformation, sometimes harsh.

In Malkuth – the conscious Kingdom of the Tree of Life on Earth – the glory of all the worlds is, was and will be integrated.

Through the human ages so far, occasional societies, kingdoms and sages with the flowering wisdom of the stars, have thrived. Wisdom hears the tree, and rises and falls like the waves at sea. It is no different today in 2012 than at any other time. As the life trapped inside our lower mind torments us, as much as it entertains, the Mayan-calender tipping point arrives: to allow the Higher Mind to enter, which truly walks the Earth. As this begins to happen, the earlier situation is much less tolerable. No birth happens without some visible destruction of the status quo.

“Aquariel” is “the philosophy of Aquarius” – the water bearer. We walk with the rose, through the woods and by the stream.

In myself I feel the dawning of this philosophy. It is not of the individual. It is the Individuation streaming through the individual, to all other organisms of space, time and beyond our time. During the 20th century and the dawn of the 21st, walls were built and broken down, catastrophically: ancient walls of tradition, society and family infrastructure … walls also of ethnic cleansing, projection and religious toxins, are built defensively, and shattered.

I cannot see how we can begin to farm our environment constructively, until these depth-issues we are wedded to, are conscious and addressed. Peace begins with the nearest instant of humanity, here at home. It is closer than our breath. Each to each response-ability passed on, is a butterfly wing effect which governs the subatomic world and the hidden Laws of Nature: the “holy and invisible order of gravity”.

“… all manner of things shall be wellwhen the tongues of flame are in-folded into the crowned knot of fire and the Rose and the Fire are one.”

T.S.Eliot, Four Quartets

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Gravity – like a flock of starlings – is the manifest flow of a myriad mini-conductors. The web-land can be used this way.

We are on the move towards getting some of it right – because a supra-Consciousness prevails among our cells, homeopathically – but the gross margin of error fills our vision. Sometimes we lift our sight above the troubled clouds. From embracing a wider view of ourselves and history, we may come to ground, act locally, and let the Aquariel contagion spread.

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A second birth – breaking through the caul of life into the Laws of Creation: an old Kabbalist engraving

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I shall be working also with a friend, Peter Chatalos, whose article/thesis “Gaia Living with Aids: Towards reconnecting Humanity with Ecosystem Autopoeisis, using Metaphors of the Immune System” is stored at http://www.interscience.wiley.com

Wishing you peace and blessings for Solstice … to hear a still small voice at the winter hearth by candlelight; the Axis Mundi through our centre turns. All is well, and all manner of things shall be well.

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The World Dancer, Tarot key 21

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Aquariel – an angel of the waters and of the air through the woods of life.

I am suffering from a personal-yesodic cyclone – shadow, projection and fear. It seems to be generated from my steward, desperately checking the wine in the cellar.

The Master of the house knows the wine. The steward goes to fetch it. Steward gets in a mess when he thinks he’s the Master.

My attitude to the teaching is arrogant. What the hell do I actually know about “the mars force?” I should read, study life with reverence, acknowledging my difficulty, not “oh-I-know-that”. I don’t know. If I did, I wouldn’t get in such a pickle.

An adept is a person whose body has reached the end of the path pictured in this Tarot Key – no.18, The Moon. When I asked Tarot a question about my fear, it showed me the beginning of the path; with Karmic law to the left and Probation to the right. It challenges my personal (moonish) attitudes and beliefs. It shows me how fearful I am, and that I am only starting out, and under supervision.

Justice past. Moon present. Temperance future. BOTA Tarot Keys

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Fear is imagining that something in my environment is out of proportion.

Fear is fond of itself, so it fastens on any small factor and develops it out of proportion … whereas the one who comprehends and embodies the path of the Moon “is courageous because he has overcome fear. He never forgets the truth that all the activities of the universe are kept in perfect balance.” (Paul Foster Case)

This is a Testing Portal. Look at those two animals/dogs whose nice kennel has blown away – bewildered by the big bleak landscape and the Moon’s sharp rays. All the drops falling down on them seem to be disasters, but are in fact YODs of the eternal Life. The Companions of the Light seem to retire, eliciting the pilgrim’s solitude and effort. The Gate is two towers, as in tolkien. The opening between them goes beyond the present limitation.

Justice sits with scales and sword between two towers. The Archangel pours his severe elixir over two muddy creatures of Ezekiel, and seems to block the path to the Mountain.

Angels through Daat in the Tree of Life, cast shadows in Yesod. Daat represents the transpersonal unknown collective. Yesod is the sefira of personality – the local one, the filter. Here is Jacobs’ Ladder for thoughtful Kabbalists. To check this out in Zev ben Shimon Halevi’s books, visit kabbalahsociety.

In Jacobs Ladder overlapping the fourfold Tree of Life, Yesod (the personal) and Daat (the transpersonal) superimpose. In the Solar system, the planetary symbols of Yesod and Daat – the Moon and Pluto, the nearest and the furthest – are almost the same size.

Jacobs Ladder – relationships of emanation, creation, psyche and body

These ideas are technical, and they distract a little from my actual fear process, but – they are pictorial. Pictures and shapes reach far beyond words, so far as the subconscious is concerned. The goal is for me to understand/standunder the way things work, as I dust myself off and keep going.

A prime element in “Courage” is restraint from reaction. Reaction is an effort to arm myself. Non-reaction, waiting for a fuller information to emerge, feels naked and exposed. The shadow invades my mind and solar plexus.

The recent sun and moon-eclipse seemed to culminate to a “heavy”, in my case. The two dogs confront the towers of Gevurah and Hesed. The Archangel stands in front of the path Yesod-Tifareth, and the path of Awe behind it. Both Keys (18 and 14) suggest that the Sun is hidden for the moment, behind the imagined situation which casts a shadow. Realising this, puts my feet one two, on the path, walk.

Pisces is the ruler of Key 18 the Moon, and of the feet – the soles of the feet. I will feel the Sun on my shoulders of his own accord, as the projection melts. Face up, and walk into what scares me … right through it. Perspective changes as I move – it comes alive.

As I have Virgo-cusp rising, Pisces (Key 18) is my Shadow sign with Lilith in it, 7th house. Confronting a partner, and that which comes to meet me, can be scary and painful, like reaching … and then my heart breaking open, grief. After a while, facing it directly begins to melt it away – the illusion and fearfulness in my mind. Grief is good, it cleanses.

The severe Guardian Angel in Key 14 is actually Michael, Archangel of the Sun. Equilibrium is the royal path to gnosis. It is the path of honesty – between Yesod and Tifareth.

So this is useful, for this morning. I feel stronger, thus more able to see. The visualising journey: here I am, a primitive human figure on the path just emerging from the primal pool. As I move along (hobbit feet!) towards the rather grim towers, the landscape is no longer a two dimensioned flat, it is incorporated, it comes to life; it wobbles and moves around and through me – into no thing: my transparency. The towers and the gap between them are sometimes four-square and sometimes one nearer and the other further. As I walk to become, it becomes me, and the fact settles. I am out of the doghouse!

There is a simple Douglas Harding experiment: to drive the world, the thingless Capacity for left and right, and marvel at what comes into view – but it requires careful attention on the road.

First-person drawings from “To Be And Not To Be” by Douglas Harding, illustrations JA

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I see or sense just my feet on the path, one then the other, move, keep going. The forbidding curtain transforms to space.

from To Be & Not To Be by Douglas Harding, illustr.JA

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sole, ear

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So who are you then, whomever I meet and fear? You look like Mara’s face, in the SITA Buddha enlightenment card. Mara is the Buddha’s opponent – the force which tried to stop the enlightenment. So get it out, and look at the devil, sex and death. Through all the blandishment, Buddha sits under his tree and keeps touching the ground with his open hand … the same as FOOT – keep walking, feel the ground – (like baby Buddha did when he was born.)

Sacred India Tarot

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Mara goes BLAH …

When I am tense and full of think, I am frightened of this stranger – Mara going BLAH – and above all, ASHAMED of admitting anything about it here, ashamed and scared of my panic and projection, lest it get worse. My panic and projection is a disguise – a whirling dust devil. But go to the root – does it really exist? No wonder it harries and drives me away from telling about it. Does it exist? Look at Mara in the drawing. Has he a body? Is he not just my scurrilous mind going WAH from behind a bush? Has he any root at all? Why, no ! just confusion. That is what he thrives on, when I let him settle in my city; and just about anything can inflate to look like him and drive me nuts. Confusion is the disorder. Confusion is the tension – giving it the power to damage and hijack my life.

This is seen in all the world’s trouble spots, cancelling Consciousness.

Well, good, good, keep going, this inner exercise will help my mind to clear. Mara forms a Grand Trine around Buddha, with a sly serpent and a siren woman. The Sacred India Tarot publisher put a bra on her, so this is the original. The serpent and the woman proceed through chaos, but the Buddha’s serenity is firmly established in the green and golden ground as Tifareth of Pentacles – his spine with the bodhi Tree of Life: the wheels of the cosmic Law. Death’s skull leers from behind the woman. Men consider Eve to be the gate of death because she gives them birth.

Sacred India Tarot

Do not let the metaphysic stray from the point. I am looking at Mara, my inflation of a magpie. It is important for me to check my euphorias and understand this entity in my being – who takes up residence in anyone who lets him in – this SQUATTER.

Look at the squatter, who does not own the house, and stops the owner from getting in.

This I find really terrifying. And see how the rats from it scurry over the world and build belief-houses occupied by squatters. Poor humans, we all suffer from this.

The squatter is the steward, getting carried away – a butler with megalomania.

Do not expect to overcome my terror at once, because here I am, in an opportunity to perceive and deal with it underneath the appearances. It is ancient. The light takes time to “incorporate”. Inevitably I end up thanking the Guardian Angel for showing me my fear, and what I learn from it, to attempt the next step. A mind like mine which teems with Providence and creativity, is vulnerable to occupation and entanglement at the lower levels. The steward gets in a tizzy.

The process is at last examined here. So now it can move on. I am frightened of occupation and hijack, and no wonder, as I am a sitting duck and make such a meal of it.

I Ching Wind over Mountain: Retreat

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The correct attitude is lightness of heart and foot. It is proper for the sage on the mountain to retreat into his sky thoughts, when the small social climber becomes a nuisance. This reminds me of the Buddha card holding the Bowl higher than the begging pilgrim. He says No I don’t descend to your level, my compassion raises you to make the effort. He raises the high-jump bar. The small social climber isn’t even looking at the Bowl, he looks sideways at his own busy thoughts and industries. When we are afraid, we do not look ahead, we glance from side to side.

Sacred India Tarot

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This Page of Pentacles/Disks has a beautiful composition – simplicity in itself. I am glad I am at last making some headway with this.

I am scared of updating my system – of things looking different, and having to learn them again; WordPress indicates it moves with the lion, leaving my snow leopard behind.

There are in the world, waves, ebbs and flows of tidal interest in whatever topic. An ear to the ground moves in circles, like the weather. Watch it drop maybe to the ground, and rise again, like a kite on the breeze. It is all illusion, illusory, because it DOESN’T EXIST! It is a cyber-thought. It is a way to communicate my thoughts at large, and to be able to see them and know that others can, too, and I theirs … we wave, as we weave. But materially my thoughts are on my sketchbooks and in my cupboard … for as long as I live.

Yesterday I went to tea with E, to help her start to organise her 80th birthday fest in January. I also showed her how to get onto my blog. The Companions of the Light came to assist me in force! E has a Macbook the same as mine, but weirdly … slightly different. It turned out, she is on the latest Mountain Lion, so I got a demo on how my admin could look.

Keep on examining fear, as and when it pops up and starts to manage me. Fear is the coagulation of any undue emphasis in my thoughts. Fear is a williwaw, a vortex, a dust-devil of the sands of Ganga.

A Sacred India Tarot reading – from left to right, past, present moment (with its unfolding quality j-h-v-h) and future.

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And now a gallery of drawings-of-fear, done in 1987

fear 87/ja

fear – trying to meditate ’87ja

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fear – utter fury

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unfolding – persephone

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fear – trying to be a buddhist

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fear – raise my glass to it

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transmuting fear – dragon song

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trying to repair the I

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I awake

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black swans

I painted this after a visit to a stately home in Staines, in whose gardens brooded a Henry James ambiance. The coal black swans were enchanted princes. The rose garden on the right, channeled into a different perspective (with peacocks), was painted while listening to Bach B Minor Mass – the Credo seemed to fugue itself into a flowering, divine affirmation; a mandala … a furled thought form.

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And now a few more swans:

Swan and Camel

The camel is a symbol for the Hebrew letter Gimel, (also a door) – related to Venus and birth. The camel carries the water through the deserts of the soul, and is considered a gomel chessed – an act of kindness.

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Swan, cygnets and owl

The owl is ambiguous – looks like a predator, but protects. The owl as the bird of Pallas Athene, is “understanding” Often we fear the mysterious guardians of our soul.

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Swan, Letter Beit

The Letter Beit – the second in the Hebrew alphabet – is “the Beginning.” We can learn a lot from the unhurried poise and soft yogic movement of the swan’s long neck. Beit contains the cosmic current which is Aleph, and is expressed through “the Intelligence of Transparency.” Beit is the concentration of what is born.

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Aquariel – an angel of the waters and of the air through the woods of life.